I recently received this sad “humor” forwarded by a very old friend from our high school and young-adult days.  (In spite of it, she’s actually a very nice lady – a retired nurse – normally caring, gentle, compassionate.  But she lives in Florida, and I can’t help but think she’s just fallen-in with a bad crowd. )

The “Humor”

Once in a while we have to stand back in awe of our government . . .
  The Food Stamp Program, administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is distributing this year the greatest amount of free Meals and Food Stamps ever to 46 million people.
  Meanwhile, the National Park Service, administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior, asks us “Please Do Not Feed the Animals.”  Their stated reason for the policy is because “The animals will grow dependent on handouts and will not learn to take care of themselves.”
  Thus ends today’s lesson in irony.

Response – To Everyone

So I sent the following to her.  And to the originator of the message.  And to everyone to whom my friend had forwarded it.  (One really should place one’s email lists in the “bcc” [blind-cc] field; not in the “To” field! ):

Okay – let’s risk introducing some FACTS into this much-hyped issue …
Take a look at what IS required of those loafers who use food-stamp, who “grow dependent on handouts and will not learn to take care of themselves”.

Quotes are from the government’s  http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/applicant_recipients/eligibility.htm

First of all – Woppps – there are WORK requirements!

Employment Requirements for Food Stamps
“Generally ABAWDS [able-bodied adults without dependents] between 18 and 50 who do not have any dependent children can get SNAP benefits only for 3 months in a 36-month period if they do not work or participate in a workfare or employment and training program other than job search. This requirement is waived in some locations.
“With some exceptions, able-bodied adults between 16 and 60 must register for work, accept suitable employment, and take part in an employment and training program to which they are referred by the local office. Failure to comply with these requirements can result in disqualification from the Program. ”

I.e., most folks CAN’T GET food stamps unless they ACTIVELY SEEK employment, and accept it when available.  AND participate in retraining!
And there’s LOTS of competition for ANY jobs when they DO become available” (from http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate – “The number of unemployed persons, at 12.2 million” ).
Please remember – the only people who are counted in those official “unemployment” statistics are people who ARE ACTIVELY SEEKING employment.

Ahhh, but there MORE – still OTHER requirements for all those loafers seeking food stamps:

Limitations on Resources
“Households may have $2,000 in countable resources, such as a bank account, or $3250 in countable resources if at least one person is age 60 or older, or is disabled.”

I.e., an entire HOUSEHOLD can’t have more than $2,000 (or $3,250 if one member is elderly or disabled) in the bank or in the value of other “countable” resources.

And even if they are earning SOME income, it can’t be much:

Limitations on Income
“Households … that have income over the amounts listed below cannot get SNAP [food stamps] benefits.  [for instance]
“Household size 1 – Net monthly income $931.
“Household size 2 – Net monthly income $1,261.”

I donno ’bout you, but I don’t think there are very many people who VOLUNTARILY choose to live within those requirements and limits.  And if they do, what kind of a “life” can anyone have if they ARE “living” that way?

Food Stamps for Wealthy Capitalists
Oh … and here’s an interesting footnote about how perhaps the best-known LEADER of our Glorious Capitalist System’s uses food-stamps (and Medicaid):  Walmart management actively counsels their employees about how to get food-stamps and Medicaid.  (Watch the recent documentary, accurately titled, “Walmart – The High Cost of Low Price”!)

The Richest Nation?  A Christian Nation?

We’re constantly told that we are “the richest nation in the world”. A compassionate nation.  A Christian nation.

Sooo … do compassionate Christians in the richest nation in the world REALLY want the 12.2-million people who ARE actively seeking work – plus all the others who DO have jobs (maybe at Walmart) but make less than $931/month and have less than $2,000 in total resources (for their entire household!) – to “make do” when it comes to being able to eat?  AND feed their kids and elderly relatives?
But … hey! … dog food’s cheap!

Is it REALLY appropriate to be casually trashing the millions of American citizens (and their children) who “choose” to try to avoid starving themselves and their kids by using food stamps?  (IF they can qualify for them.)

Maybe it’d be worthwhile – especially for anyone who claims to be a Christian – to try LIVING on food stamps for, say, an entire week … before so casually trashing those who do so.  http://foodstampchallenge.typepad.com/

–jim; Jim Warren, open-govt & tech-civlib advocate & sometime columnist

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Warren_%28computer_specialist%29

justjim36 on twitter | Jim Warren on Facebook

No matter whether you are a citizen activist, or an elected official – if you want to increase chances of getting your message or comments accurately quoted in the media, then using Twitter can be good practice! Here’s why:

Its 140-character limit trains you [us!] to be CONCISE and BRIEF.  That GREATLY increases the possibility that any reporter covering an event where you speak might quote you directly.

It trains you [us] to NOT do what almost all [of us] activists are inclined to do – certainly mirrored by politicians who [like us] adore the unending sound of their [our] own voices – to be so lengthy, detailed and byzantine in our comments that NO reporter in their right mind would EVER quote us.  And if they did, their editor would amputate most of it!

Instead, IF they cover our comments at all, reporters will summarize and paraphrase our too-lengthy blather. Sometimes, the really good ones even get it mo’less right – although invariably denting the Pristine Perfection and Completeness of our comments.

Background: For many years, I had a great housemate who was a journalist – spending most of his life as a reporter, usually covering local govt and politics, and later as the editor of a well-reputed community newspaper (on the San Francisco Peninsula, where it’s often said that the #1 avocation is politics).

He told me the story of one particular city council member, who seemed to ALWAYS get his quotes into the articles and reports of city council meetings; FAR in excess of quotes from any of the other council members.

Journalistic favoritism? Not at all!

During meetings, that [astute] council member would start scribbling on a note pad in front of him … scratch something out and write more … doing that several times BEFORE finally speaking. Then – when he DID finally say something – his comment was concise, to the point and short enough to be easily QUOTED! Which it was. Often!

On the eve of the election, I can’t help but think that we’ve been here before.

In 1929, years of greed and excess culminated in “Black Thursday” – ushering in the Great Depression, magnified by years of drought that led to the “Dust Bowl.”

Yet, out of those darkest days, FDR’s New Deal put people to work – mostly building public works and infrastructure that serve us to this day.  We went on to fight and win WWII, rebuild Germany and Japan under the Marshall Plan, and usher in decades of prosperity during which we went to the moon, and wired the world.

All of this sounds  familiar – years of Wall Street excess leading to global financial collapse, drought, and did I forget to mention prohibition (alcohol then, other things today)?

And the choices facing us are starkly similar – go backwards with the policies of greed that put us in a ditch, and with a party that would repeal the New Deal; or go forward with those who would build for the future.  Do we want a party of no, that has avowedly created gridlock for political purposes; or the party that brought us out of the last Great Depression and is beginning to get us out of the current one.  The party that would “let the US Auto Industry Die” or the one that rescued it?  A party that wants to let financiers and aging industries continue to rape and pillage, or one that wants to rebuild our own technology and industrial base?  A party that has become demented, or one that has its eye on the ball?

This election should be about making America great again, building new energy infrastructure for a sustainable 21st century, curbing the excesses of Wall Street, and a NEW New Deal to secure our medical and financial security.

So vote, vote Democrat across the line, re-elect President Obama, and give him a super-majority in the Senate and a majority in the House.

Normally, one can use a candidate’s position and policy statements to predict – at least somewhat – their probable performance if they win their election. However, on almost every significant position and policy he had taken, Willard [Mitt] Romney and his official spokespeople have issued totally contradictory statements. (Except about his ignoring his father’s well-justified policy of disclosing many years of tax returns, rather than keeping their secrets hidden from the voters he asks to trust him.)

Sometimes his contradicting positions were even stated only hours apart. Numerous experienced political observers have said they have never-before seen a presidential candidate who has blithely done anything like it, especially not with such consistency.

Since we are thus unable to have any idea of what he would really do or where he stands, we must look at the portion of his track record about which we do have any useful information.

He constantly claims that he knows how to fix our economy and produce jobs. What of his experience could make those claims believable?

Unquestionably, his greatest success and longest experience was as the co-founder and CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of Bain Capital, a so-called private equity corporation. So how did he run it?

“Private equity” is money wealthy private investors provide to a company not listed on any stock exchange and thus not required to publicly disclose much about its activities. Romney’s Bain Capital, in particular, apparently specialized in LBO’s – leveraged buyouts. (LBO’s didn’t even exist prior to the mid-1950’s, and didn’t become widespread until the 1980’s.)

The general LBO process is to find some corporation that is momentarily undervalued compared to its assets – preferably one that has, as part of those assets, large reserves of cash. It might be undervalued because it is out of vogue in the notoriously fickled stock market. Or perhaps it had a momentary setback in its market area or productivity. Sometimes, especially with older companies, some or much of their cash reserves are in their pension fund, originally intended to provide financial security to the corporation’s loyal, long-time employees, when they finally retire.

It is not unusual for LBO operations to use just enough of their investors’ money to buy a controlling interest in such a corporation; then promptly hire themselves – as a separate “management” company – to run the company, typically charging handsomely for the management services that they are providing to the company they have captured. This allows the investors to quickly reap a return, irregardless of how the “managers” run the company.

An easy way to pay those handsome “management” fees and other returns to investors, is to borrow as much as possible against all of the captive company’s assets. One of the easiest sources for such borrowing is the company’s own pension fund! LBO “managers” of the captive company can “borrow” all of what had been “secure” funds intended to become retirement benefits for its employees – borrowing every penny, irregardless of whether they can ever be repaid.

(Think of it as a private-sector variation on the federal government borrowing from the Social Security Trust Fund. Except that companies don’t have the taxation power needed to raise the money necessary to repay such federal debts.)

Another alternative is to break-up the company and sell its parts– when they are worth more separately than the company is currently worth as an integrated whole. Since the only goal of the private-equity investors is to maximize their own profits, they can do this without hesitancy. It satisfies the investors’ goal, regardless of its impact on the company and its employees (much less its retirees).

The key point here is that it is NOT the well-being of the company that is of concern, and certainly not of its employees (and retirees). The ONLY goal is maximizing the profits of the wealthy private-equity investors, preferably as soon as possible!

Okay – so what might Romney’s longest experience and greatest success predict as to how he would run the USA as its CEO?

Note that, once again, Romney has an elite cadre of investors – including but certainly limited to Adelson, the Koch brothers and numerous similarly wealthy individuals with whom he spends so much of his time. And with whom he has been so much more candid about his views than he has been with the voters.

(Note that even now – the final week before the election – rather than sending his partner, Paul Ryan, to speak to large groups of would-be voters, instead, Romney has Ryan holding most of his meetings hidden away with small groups of potential investors.)

So – based on Romney’s greatest success and most extensive experience, we should thus assume that the following would be features of his management of the USA:

• First and foremost, he will have the “company” he now “manages” deliver the maximum possible return on investment to his investors. This will be done by various means:

- tax-funded (that is, debt-funded) contracts to their companies (like the Cheney-Bush operation’s billion-dollar no-bid contracts to Cheney’s Haliburton and its subsidiaries; high-profit contracts to Blackwater which was owned by a major Bush contributor, etc.);

- tax/debt-funded subsidies to the corporations and conglomerates in which his investors have major holdings;

- below-value leases and outright sales of the “company’s” land and underground assets;

- granting of monopoly licenses (e.g. FCC licenses), etc.

• Second, he will channel hefty chunks of his “company’s” tax/debt-based funds to his fellow “managers”, whom he will hire and place in the highest-paying positions possible. (Think of Bush’s FEMA director, Michael Brown – hurricane Katrina’s “helluva job, Brownie” – a major Bush fund-raiser, whose most notable previous management experience that “qualified” him for that position had been as the Judges and Stewards Commissioner for the International Arabian Horse Association.)

• Third – noting his extensive experience in hiding his income from taxation – Romney and Ryan and their congressional Republicans will do as much as they can to make it even easier for them and their investors, to hide even more of their wealth from being taxed to support the nation from which they have so magnificently benefited.

•  He can also use his management experience in exporting Americans’ jobs to send government jobs offshore.  Especially when those offshore service-providers are owned by his investors.  Note that investor Adelson already has significant foreign holdings.

Why … just think of the many other ways that Romney can use his position as CEO of the USA, to further-benefit and pay-off his investors! No matter what long-term damage it might do to that asset and to the rank-and-file citizens who depend on it (where he would only be CEO for 4-8 years, anyway).

– Jim Warren

The Phi hopes to do for radio what Apple I did for computing—spark innovation.

In 1976, two shaggy-haired college dropouts founded a company called Apple to manufacture personal computers. The company’s prospects looked so poor that the third co-founder relinquished his 10 percent stake in the company for $800 that same year. It simply wasn’t clear why anyone would want the firm’s Apple I computer. It was so under-powered that it couldn’t perform many of the functions of mainframes and minicomputers that were already on the market. And most consumers had no interest in having a computer in their homes.

Today, of course, Apple is the world’s largest company by market capitalization. What was important about the Apple I wasn’t the meager capabilities of the original version, but the promise it held for rapid innovation in the coming decades.

Now, a company called Per Vices hopes to do for wireless communication what Apple did for computing. It is selling software-defined radio gear called the Phi that, like the Apple I, is likely to be of little interest to the average consumer (it was even briefly priced at the same point as the Apple I, $666.66, but has since been placed at $750). But the device, and others like it, has the potential to transform the wireless industry. This time, the revolution will depend on hackers enabled to manipulate radio signals in software.

Read the full article here

 Thanks to friend Dewayne Hendricks for brining this to my attention.

First published by the Pittsburg Post Gazette
April 8, 2012 5:47 pm
By Michael Cudahy and Jock Gill

If ever there was a moment for Americans to pay attention to the state of their democracy — or what is left of it — that time is now. As this country staggers out of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the pathetic response from many political leaders has been coarse and irrational partisan attacks, and legislative gridlock.

Dysfunctional behavior is undermining America’s role as a global leader and is laying the groundwork for crippling institutional failures.

In their new book, “Why Nations Fail,” economists James Robinson from Harvard and Daron Acemoglu from MIT, answer the question with a one-word answer, “Politics.”

What they mean is that prosperous, successful countries succeed because of their ability to develop “inclusive” systems designed to protect and strengthen their entire populations. Nations fail when their institutions become “extractive,” designed to loot wealth for just a few.

Please continue reading here.

Forget peak oil. The population of the finite earth has now passed peak natural resources of ALL kinds. The destructive negative feedback loop powered by fear, greed, and power grabs, that is currently bedeviling much of the planet, is strong evidence that this condition is well known, even if none dare speak of it. As a thought experiment, subtract from current politics and economics all elements dependent upon the exploitation of natural resource. What is left? What do we need to invent to fill the voids?

For starters, Krugman and Friedman illuminate a basic conflict over education. Krugman posits that the current attack on education is a defensive strategy, required by the rapid rates of change facing us, based on the hope that what you don’t know won’t hurt the oligarchs in the 1%. Friedman, citing the example of Taiwan, writes in his article “Pass the Books, Hold the Oil”:

You’re the luckiest people in the world. How did you get so lucky? You have no oil, no iron ore, no forests, no diamonds, no gold, just a few small deposits of coal and natural gas — and because of that you developed the habits and culture of honing your people’s skills, which turns out to be the most valuable and only truly renewable resource in the world today.

Friedman goes on:

“Add it all up and the numbers say that if you really want to know how a country is going to do in the 21st century, don’t count its oil reserves or gold mines, count its highly effective teachers, involved parents and committed students. “Today’s learning outcomes at school,” says Schleicher, “are a powerful predictor for the wealth and social outcomes that countries will reap in the long run.”

…

“In sum, says Schleicher, “knowledge and skills have become the global currency of 21st-century economies, but there is no central bank that prints this currency. Everyone has to decide on their own how much they will print.” Sure, it’s great to have oil, gas and diamonds; they can buy jobs. But they’ll weaken your society in the long run unless they’re used to build schools and a culture of lifelong learning. “The thing that will keep you moving forward,” says Schleicher, is always “what you bring to the table yourself.”

Note the emphasis on personal responsibility for what you bring to the table. This is a fundamentally ‘conservative’ stance. Will it help make the transition to the new economics and new politics required for a vibrant, regenerative and dynamic future possible? This question is suggested by the work of Jonathan Haidt, as reported in an interview by Johua Rothham in the article “Why Republicans and Democrats will never agree“.

Haidt posits that our politics and opinions are rooted in intuition, are irrational at their core, and clearly influenced by genetics. How, then, do we get Conservatives and Liberals to both intuit the appropriate responses to a finite world that is now past peak all natural resources? How do we “intuit” and incorporate into our irrational belief systems the possible “fact” that the old politics and economics, based on the exploitation of natural resources, are no longer appropriate? What do we have to do to achieve the best possible outcome for humanity’s future? For starters, the best outcome requires that, in the United States at least, Republicans and Democrats learn to agree more than they disagree. It is only then that we will be able to return to a positive feedback loop that brings out the best in all of us. The question is simply is there time enough to accomplish this turn around before the consequences of over-shooting the natural resource base of our planet make the question mute.

So which course will America choose? Switching from an economy and politics based on natural resource exploitation to one based on education and life long learning will be a wrenching change. It will challenge many irrational belief systems. It is the only path to a vibrant, regenerative and dynamic future.

If you are interested in any of:

> grass energy
> cook stoves that do not pollute the air with lots of particulate matter, especially carbon black soot
> Haiti
> soil stabilization and restoration
> biochar
> reforestation

Then this video is very encouraging. The cookies look delicious.

Congratulations to Mike Mahowald and the team at Haiti Reconsturuction Intl.

Tags: Biochar, cooking, energy, environment, stoves, vetiver